Virgil’s World
Virgil’s Aeneid follows the Trojan hero Aeneas from the fall of Troy to a settlement in Italy. The poem’s action moves through the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa, Sicily, the underworld and central Italy. The places are listed in the order of the voyage, followed by the sequence of events book by book.
Places in the Poem
Book 2 of the Aeneid has Aeneas relate how Troy was taken after a ten years’ siege, through the treachery of Sinon and the stratagem of a wooden horse. Aeneas leaves the city carrying his father Anchises on his shoulders and leading his young son by the hand, with his wife following behind.
In Book 3 Aeneas sails first to Thrace, then to Delos, where he consults an oracle about the place the gods had appointed for his dwelling. A mistaken reading of the oracle leads him to settle in Crete, until his household gods give him the true sense of the answer in a dream.
Sicily appears twice in the voyage. At the end of Book 3 Aeneas lands there and his father Anchises dies. In Book 5 a storm drives him back to the island, where Acestes, a king of part of Sicily born of Trojan parentage, receives him. Funeral games are held for Anchises, and Aeneas founds a city there for those unfit for war or weary of the voyage.
In Book 1 a storm brings Aeneas and seven ships to an African port, and Venus brings him in a cloud to Carthage, where Queen Dido receives him. Book 4 narrates Dido’s passion for Aeneas, his departure at the warning of Mercury, and her death.
In Book 6 the Sibyl accompanies Aeneas into the underworld. There his father Anchises instructs him about the soul and transmigration and shows him the line of heroes who are to descend from him.
Books 7 to 12 are set in Italy. King Latinus receives Aeneas and promises him his daughter Lavinia. Turnus, who is in love with her, breaks the treaty and gathers allies, among them Mezentius, Camilla and Messapus. Aeneas seeks help from Evander and the Tuscans, and the war ends with the death of Turnus in single combat.
Timeline of the Action
The poem opens after a seven years’ voyage (Book 1), and Books 2 and 3 are Aeneas’s own narrative of earlier events. The sequence that follows keeps the order of events rather than the order of the books.
Troy falls after a ten years’ siege (Book 2). Aeneas sails by way of Thrace, Delos and Crete to Sicily, where Anchises dies (Book 3). A storm raised by Aeolus at the request of Juno drives the fleet to Africa (Book 1). Aeneas stays at Carthage with Dido and then departs, and she takes her own life (Book 4). Funeral games are held in Sicily, the ships are set on fire, and the pilot Palinurus is lost on the voyage to Italy (Book 5). Aeneas visits the underworld (Book 6). In Latium the treaty with Latinus is broken (Book 7). Aeneas gains allies from Evander (Book 8). Turnus attacks the Trojan camp in his absence (Book 9). Pallas, Lausus and Mezentius die in battle (Book 10). A truce for burying the dead is followed by the death of Camilla (Book 11). Aeneas and Turnus fight in single combat, ending with the death of Turnus (Book 12).